It takes a special type of house music fan to commit to the Sunday. Friday and Saturday take all the glory and it’s only the seasoned veterans, the true die-hards and the musical aficionados who pick up on the day of rest becoming the day of rave. It presents a minefield for promoters looking to lure a successful event out a soiree on this day, but get it right and you have a truly special thing on your hands.
The goings on in Berlin at Panoramabar and Berghain on a Sunday are the stuff of legend, see also in Ibiza where school-nights are a distant memory for We Love. London has also spawned the truly great Secretsundaze and Lazydog on the same day, and the last few years has seen the capital boast another epochal gathering in Fuse.
Helmed by Enzo Siragusa, the event has quickly become one of the most respected parties for seasoned electronic music fans, redefining carry on culture. It’s spread its wings into Manchester and Ibiza with Sankeys, and helped push Siragusa slowly towards the upper echelons of the house and techno elite.
With Enzo due to bring a bit of the Fuse charm to Liverpool for mUmU Session on Saturday 5th April, not to mention a summer that includes Cocoon in the Park and Hideout we thought we’d catch up with him to discuss his future plans for Fuse and its pair of labels, working with alexkid and being given the chance to record with any musician form any period in time.
Fuse is now in its sixth year, and over that time you’ve changed the way Sunday clubbing is perceived in the capital. Where is the club heading this year?
We’re still doing parties in Village Underground in London, they’ve always been monthly but we are starting to do more frequent events there. And we’ll definitely be back in Ibiza, with a weekly party again more than likely. There will be more info about that very soon.
You’ve had a guestlist only policy so you can be selective with your crowd. What’s the thinking behind this measure?
The policy came about when we noticed how the club’s crowd was changing as we got more and more popular, and how clubbing in London was changing overall. We just felt we needed to be more selective to retain what we were about. It was never a case of seeing what you looked like or what you’re wearing, we just wanted to make sure the right people with the right attitude was in the club.
The idea is to focus on a more discerning person really or mature clubber, someone who has the right vibe about them and is there for the right reasons. It’s not a new thing at all, I remember this being the case for places like Ministry back in the day. It’s done for the right reasons, and it’s worked well for us so far.
You’re off to Liverpool soon for an extended set at mUmU sessions. Have you played for them before?
Me and Trevor, the promoter of mUmU, have been friends for years, going back to working summer seasons in Ibiza, and I’ve played for him in Liverpool a few times and it’s always great. Lee Rands, the mUmU resident, is also a good friend and someone who has played for us at Fuse, so there’s a strong connection.
You’ll be playing an extended set there as part of their focus on a singular DJ for a long period of the night. Is this something that aligns with the philosophy at Fuse, and do you get the chance to play these extended set much?
There’s a definite similarity with what mUmU are doing and the way we are at Fuse, we share some core values. When Fuse first started we couldn’t really afford to pay for guest DJs, so I was playing six or seven hour sets out of necessity! But that idea of long sets is a good one, and something we still aspire to at the club.
It’s not something I get to do as often any more, especially when playing on the bigger stages where it’s less likely, but I love doing it. I play all the way from deep house right up to full on techno, and I love being able to start in once place and end up somewhere completely different.
Being able to go from different moods and different energies is a part of the way I play as well, and I tend to meander down different routes during my DJ sets anyway, so I always enjoy the chance to play across a long period of time. I’m looking forward to doing this in Liverpool.
What other gigs have you got forthcoming? Have you been booked for any festivals as well?
This weekend, before the gig in Liverpool on the Saturday, I’m playing NextDoor in Birmingham which is a new club I’m really excited about going to. Festival wise the two that are jumping out at me right now are Hideout and Cocoon in the Park, the line up for Cocoon is insane.
Fuse has two labels, Fuse London and Infuse London. What’s the difference between the two?
Fuse London started off as a platform for me and the other residents at London, so we could push the sound of what we are about at the club and the DJs behind it. As we moved on we realised there was more people being involved, and we were being sent an amazing amount of music, but we still wanted to retain the original label to do what we set out to.
Infuse London kind of came out of this, so we could expand to incorporate the music of the Friends of Fuse. A lot of stuff which was from people who had been influenced either by playing for us or spending time on the dancefloor. The next release on Fuse is from RichNXT, a four track EP that features a release from mine and Alexkid’s Kilimanjaro project.
Can you tell us more about that hook up with Alexkid?
Yeah, it’s a project between us both exploring our influences from jungle. This was where I started, I used to go out to raves in London in the nineties to old hardcore and drum and bass parties, and it’s my formative era for me really. And with Alex, the first record he put out on FCOM, Laurent Garnier’s old label, was a drum and bass release, so the history is there for us.
We wanted to put together these old sounds from drum and bass with house and techno tracks, so you get four four music with these mad jungle sounds. And a lot of bass! Alex is a next level producer, some of the ideas he has are amazing and he brings so much to the table on this project, and we’ve come up with something which brings the feel of this old music which was so important in both our pasts. That EP will also be out soon.
As a final note we’d love to know what album you’d make, if given an unlimited budget and a Delorean by your record label, which meant you could pick any recording cast from any time period, dead or alive. Who would you go for and what would the end product sound like?
Wow, that’s a tough question. I guess if I could go back in time I’d go to Pink Floyd, the era after Syd Barrett left the group. I’ve been lucky in the past where I got to see Roger Waters a couple of years ago play live and he was amazing, as was the whole band when they reformed in Hyde Park for the Live 8 show which I also got the chance to see; both gigs were unreal.
Floyd were always a big afterparty staple, a lot of hazy memoires afterhours playing The Dark Side of the Moon after going out DJing or clubbing; their use of synths is amazing. As for what the music would be like, I don’t really know how it would be. It probably wouldn’t come out like dance music, it would be more of an electronica vibe, based on the soundscapes they created.
In Liverpool this weekend? Then catch Enzo play an extended set on Saturday April 5th for mUmU sessions at Kitchen Street’s pop up venue. Tickets are available below:
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